Dear David,
How are you? I hope you are well. I'm fine thank you. Hope you had a nice Valentine's Day, did you get my card? Anyway, I gather you are curious to understand the reasons as to my absence from the Theatre of Broken Dreams last Sunday. I have got a note from my mum.
Let me start by apologising. It was in no way a sleight on you or your band of merry men. Unfortunately much of what will follow also has the benefit of hindsight and so is a little biased.
If the match had ended a 6-4 all time classic smorgasbord extravaganza then I would be sitting here ruing my absence and self-flagellating as punishment. However it finished 1-0 with a goal in the seventy something minute in a game that had nil nil written all over it like the scorecard at my porn audition (by the way thanks for giving me a try anyway).
When I woke on Sunday morning I was ticketless due to the fact that I was supposed to be playing football. Despite my advancing years I do still play the wonderful game that we both love. In truth that is a part of the problem. I play for the love the game, actually I pay to play for the love of the game. The brief snow flurries that brought the country to a complete halt also caused the postponement of my Sunday football. It's a relief that Hitler never realised the chaos a small amount of snow can cause in Britain otherwise he could have walked into the UK on a February morning back in the 1940s. He wouldn't have needed such sophisticated machines such as the enigma, a mere barometer from his local Lidl would have sufficed.
My mind tossed and turned over whether to leave my nice warm comfortable house with a great big television (too big to get through the patio doors for any burglars reading this) and part with nigh on thirty quid for a pre midday kick off on a cold winter's morning to watch a match against Stoke City.
All the time I was watching those sporting wonders, the England cricket team, spank those awful Aussies and watched the clock trying to make a decision. In the end I thought ‘bollocks to you'.
Sorry for the profanity but in light of your recent abuse I didn't feel inclined to give you my hard earned cash. It seems clear that you have fallen out of love with Birmingham City, such a shame, on Valentine's Day as well.
If you don't like being our Chairman any more then you too can exercise your right like Matthew Upson did and announce your desire to depart, then leave. Don't misunderstand me Dave (can I call you Dave?) you have done a fine job in restoring our club from the dark days of the Kumars and Ken Wheldon and for that we are grateful. You have improved the ground, improved the team and improved the club as a business. I'm sure you have done quite well out of the job as well and before you bemoan how much money you have injected and how little you have taken out, I am positive that as you are such a successful business man you have utilised the club to dispose of funds, avoid/ evade taxes, entertain clients, employ friends and family, etc etc. I wouldn't expect anything less but don't try and bluff us that it has all been one way.
Over the last few years you have made overtures about Cardiff and West Ham and the problems of commuting from your country home to the Blues. Nice house by the way, I hear it's the biggest house built in Britain since the Second World War. You sir have a fine and wonderful lifestyle and you will never fear the postman making fresh prints in the snow on your footpath. You don't have to wonder whether by attending the match means you will have to stay in for the rest of the week and forego your one takeaway meal. You don't stand in the pub and count your change and wonder if you can afford another beer.
We watch the club we love sell its best players and struggle to comprehend the wages paid to these ungrateful prima donnas. We pray for the relegation of clubs we don't normally care about because they took our best players. We hear the club say that we are not a selling club and that certain players will never be sold and then days later the player departs. Dave, we know that if a player wants to leave then it is best that he goes but don't try and con us that he is staying and then sell him at the last minute, pocket a huge amount of cash and not arrange a replacement. How can we be better off? The sale of Upson has reduced our chances of promotion. He's not that good a player but he was generally better than what we have now and the squad is also a player down.
Football is still a working class sport, it's just that most of us can only afford to follow it when the finances allow. Fans are picking and choosing their games based upon a combination of factors such as the quality of the opposition, the potential for entertainment, the chance of achieving value for money and the affordability of the event.
How out of touch with reality can you be that you seriously perceived Stoke City on a cold Sunday morning at £29 as an attractive proposition? I didn't and so kept my money and thanks to the beauty of hindsight it appears I made the right decision.
I could lend you a little bit of hindsight so that you can come out and admit that you had made a mistake? That indeed the match was bloody awful, the pitch was akin to my back lawn and even the players themselves confessed they wouldn't have paid to watch it.
For ninety minutes I watched, from the warmth of my local pub, well paid professionals (and you pay ‘em mate!) struggle to pass the ball five yards to a team mate. My team created one decent chance in the first half. You were right when you said we didn't deserve promotion, we were rubbish. But that said we are second and we have games in hand and if we all pulled in the same direction and you still loved us half as much as we loved Birmingham City then we might have a chance. But you don't. Every press statement from you is negative and critical.
We are simple folk. We want to be entertained for a reasonable price. You will never please some people, there are those who abuse the players before a ball is even kicked and for them there is no hope. Let them go, ignore them. The rest of us seriously want to be at St Andrews every other Saturday but you have to want us as well and you have to entice us. We are your customers, you do not have a divine right to expect our attendance. A business that loses customers canvasses opinions and stops the rot. Give us a call, don't leave it so long. We'd love to have a chat.
Please don't take just the negatives from this letter. Our love for the Blues is as strong as ever and we want success the same as you. We just don't have much money these days and have to select carefully what we spend the cash on. Good luck with the promotion push, the remaining squad should still be good enough to get an automatic spot but let's do it the easy way rather than go to Preston needing to win.
Give our love to the family and let us know when you have a gap in your diary. It would be great to spend the weekend at your place, it would be like a trip to Center Parcs.
Yours faithfully,
Darren (SkyDaz)
PS Keep right on. By the way I got the missus a new bag and a belt for Valentine's Day …. The hoover works a treat now.